Cañon City Tigers cheer team takes 16th at state

By CARIE CANTERBURY canterburyc@ cañoncitydailyrecord.com

Posted:
12/11/2012 06:25:19 AM MST

The Cañon City High School Tiger cheerleaders pose for a photo at the Cañon Academy of Gymnastics before heading to the state spirit competition Saturday at the Denver Coliseum. From left are Shelby Flick, Mariah Matthews, Raina Snelson, Kandi Hamilton, Shae Sandritter and Makayla Snelson, coach. (Courtesy Photo)

The Cañon City Tigers cheer team is small and its members are young, but their collective voice was heard loud and clear at the state spirit competition Saturday at the Denver Coliseum.

The team placed 16th out of 48 teams and were only 10 points away from qualifying for finals.

"I couldn't be more proud of my 'fab 5' for holding their own and leaving it all on the mat," Tigers coach Makayla Snelson said.

The team also earned second place at Spirit Fest in September at Elitch Gardens, the only other competition of their season.

"We've really stressed the theory that it's all about quality versus quantity and this past weekend cemented that thought as the girls were the smallest team competing," Snelson said. "This is the best Cañon CityCheer has placed to date at state."

The girls are judged on their stunts, dance technique, cheer technique, presence, confidence, facials and voice.

Sophomore team co-captains Shae Sandritter and Raina Snelson lead sophomore Kandi Hamilton and juniors Shelby Flick and Mariah Matthews. Raina Snelson is the only returner this year.

The team cheers for volleyball, football and girls and boys basketball during the school year.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.